History YMMV / MobyDick

* MainstreamObscurity: Moby was a whale hunter. Everyone knows that. Not so many people have read the books.

* OneSceneWonder: Father Mapple in the film versions, as played by Creator/OrsonWelles (1956), Gregory Peck (1998), and Donald Sutherland (2011).

** The narration offers a defense of whaling by mentioning the benefits to humanity whale oil has had and also talks about how the whaling vessels allowed the liberation of the South American countries from Spanish imperial power, led to the successful colonisation of Australia, opened up the Polynesian islands to Europeans and forecasts whalers as being the cause for Japan to end its isolationism. To modern readers this can easily be read as the whaling industry being a figure to blame not only for the decline of cetaceans but also the suppression and decimation of tribal cultures and the resulting [[WorldWarII tragedy]] from Japan's rapid modernisation.

* OneSceneWonder: Father Mapple in the film versions, as played by Creator/OrsonWelles (1956), [[RemakeCameo Gregory Peck]] (1998), and Donald Sutherland (2011).

* ItWasHisSled: The ending.

* MoralityPet: Starbuck and Pip are both this to Ahab. Unfortunately, if this is the case, they both fail dismally and Ahab loses it (or--well, loses it even more than he already had) and [[spoiler: the ship gets wrecked and everyone dies]].
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: "Ahab." Back then, most people would probably have known darn well about the evil biblical king Ahab (so it's not entirely unlikely that in the case of Captain Ahab this trope would overlap with [[EmbarrassingFirstName Embarassing Given Name]]), and while the captain's evil-ness is debatable, he's definitely insane and dangerous.

* RatedMForManly: An older version of this trope than many are used to. Melville is almost bombastic in expounding how manly and strong whale hunters are, and spares no gore at all in his descriptions of hunting and slaughtering.

* MoralityPet: Arguably Starbuck and Pip are both this to Ahab. Unfortunately, if this is the case, they both fail dismally and Ahab loses it (or--well, loses it even more than he already had) and [[spoiler: the ship gets wrecked and everyone dies]].
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Arguably, "Ahab." I mean, back then, most people would probably have known darn well about the evil biblical king Ahab (so it's not entirely unlikely that in the case of Captain Ahab this trope would overlap with [[EmbarrassingFirstName Embarassing Given Name]]), and while the captain's evil-ness is debatable, he's definitely insane and dangerous.

* AmbiguouslyGay: Ahab; Ishmael mentions at one point that he seems less interested in women than anyone else on board, and while it's mentioned that he is married to a woman, he only even mentions her in passing when she is brought up by Starbuck--and in chapter 132, he even tells Starbuck that he would rather gaze into his eyes than see God (note that in the mid-19th century, religion was essentially the be-all end-all of life, so Ahab saying this carried a ''lot'' more weight than it would today).
* AwesomeMoments: After Peleg insults Queequeg, Ishmael jumps in to defend him, but Queequeg calmly pulls him back and shows [[ImprobableAimingSkills just how skilled he is with a harpoon.]]

** Through most of ''Moby-Dick'', the sperm whale was a monster, the legendary leviathan to be hunted down and killed for its oil and spermaceti. Melville admonshed people not to burn sperm-candles or lamp oil recklessly, not because he wished to spare the whales' lives, but because so many human sailors died every year on whaling expeditions. In the modern world, just about every species of whale is endangered, and whaling was one of the main reasons for their dangerously low numbers in the wild; "save the whales" is a rallying cry more people support than oppose and thus people are more likely now to cheer on Moby defending himself. Yet at the time the story was written, whale populations were much larger, and nothing was known of whalesong or other such indicators of cetacean intelligence.

* CosmicPlaything: Ahab tends to see himself either as this or as being above all men and possible gods--there is no in-between.

* BadassGay: Captain Ahab. We're not sure whether to emphasize the "badass" part or the "gay" part.

* OneSceneWonder: Father Mapple in the film versions, as played by OrsonWelles (1956), [[RemakeCameo Gregory Peck]] (1998), and Donald Sutherland (2011).

* RootingForTheEmpire: In modern culture most people will be cheering Moby on as he kills everyone, no matter how sympathetic adaptations try to make the crew. This is because in modern times with the high intelligence of whales being well known, most people don't see Moby Dick as a remorseless monster but as an innocent victim just defending himself.

* ChaoticNeutral: Ahab is probably just about the embodiment of this alignment.

* HilariousInHindisght: Chapter 44 says that sperm whale migrations often match [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail the flight of swallows.]]

** Captain Ahab and Starbuck had a bit of this going on. Mixed with FoeYay, since it's Starbuck who intended to shoot sleeping Ahab a little earlier.

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** In the ''Reader's Digest: World's Best Reading'' edition, Thomas Fleming states in the Afterword that critics scoffed at the idea of someone going as far as Ahab did, and everyone around simply obeying...until they lived through WorldWarI.

* CosmicPlaything: Ahab seems to think of himself as one, or at least during some monologues.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Captain Ahab -- revenge-obsessed madman or TragicHero or [[MathematiciansAnswer Both.]]

%%* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic